Steam Next Fest June 2026 opened on June 15 with close to 5,000 free demos. Most of them will come and go without leaving much of an impression. Empulse, from 1047 Games, is not most of them. The studio actually launched the demo a day before Next Fest officially opened, and players have been talking about it since the moment they got in.
Whether the game will hold that attention past launch day on June 24 is a different question. But right now, during the week that matters most for a demo to build momentum, Empulse is one of the loudest conversations in PC gaming. Here is what it is, where it comes from, and why the reaction has been split in exactly the way that tends to mean something.
What Is Empulse?
Empulse is a 6v6 multiplayer first-person shooter set in Freehold, a post-utopian city built for vertical movement. The core toolkit is: wall-running, a grappling hook, Holojumps, and P.A.I.N.T. bombs that let you alter surfaces on the map. On top of all that, each match has two pilotable mechs that spawn at the center of the map mid-round. Whoever reaches them first gets a chaingun-equipped power spike that can swing the game.
1047 Games has been open about the reference points. Titanfall 2 is the main one, and it shows. The wall-running is forward and backward, chains into grapples, and works on nearly every vertical surface in the game. Black Ops 3 is the other name that keeps coming up, which should tell you something about the target audience. If you spent any real time in either of those games and have been waiting for something to fill that gap, Empulse is explicitly aimed at you.
The game goes into Early Access on June 24 at $19.99, with a launch week discount dropping it to $15. It releases on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S simultaneously, though the demo is only available on Steam during Next Fest.
Who Made It and Why That History Matters
1047 Games built the original Splitgate, the portal-based shooter that blew up in 2021 when its servers got overwhelmed during a beta and the studio had to scramble to keep the game online. That was a good problem to have. The follow-up, Splitgate 2, was a much harder story. It launched in 2025, got an immediate negative reaction for its monetization approach, and was effectively unlaunched shortly after release. Layoffs followed. The studio rebuilt itself around Splitgate: Arena Reloaded in December 2025, but player retention did not hold.
Empulse is what comes after all of that. It is a new IP, not a Splitgate sequel, and 1047 Games has been deliberate about framing it that way. The announcement came in May 2026 with a trailer that dropped the studio's portal mechanic entirely and replaced it with mechs and movement. CEO Ian Proulx has been doing press and demo sessions, including at Summer Game Fest 2026 in Los Angeles, where he walked journalists through the controls personally.
The studio's history is the thing that cuts both ways here. People who loved the original Splitgate have real goodwill toward the team. People who bought into Splitgate 2 and felt burned are much harder to win back. Both groups are currently in the same comment sections talking about this demo, and neither is being quiet about it.
What the Demo Actually Plays Like
Impressions from journalists who played Empulse at Summer Game Fest and from players now in the Next Fest demo have been more positive than the studio's recent track record might suggest.
Shacknews described it as feeling like "Black Ops 3 meets Titanfall," noting that the movement clicked quickly and the gunplay felt tight. That is a meaningful comparison to make, because both of those games had movement systems that were genuinely difficult to execute well. Empulse, by most accounts, does not make wall-running feel tacked on. It is built into the map design and the weapon balance from the start.
The mech system has come up repeatedly as the standout. Rather than giving everyone their own mech, the two available mechs spawn as a shared objective. Both teams are fighting to reach them. When you get in one, you have a chaingun and enough armor to absorb serious damage. When the enemy gets in one before you, you need a plan to take it down. One preview compared the dynamic to fighting over a rocket launcher in Halo, which is a useful frame: it makes the mech feel earned rather than handed out.
Lordsofgaming.net noted that the game makes much more sense when you play it with all the tools rather than treating it like a hallway shooter. That seems to be the consistent theme across impressions. If you play Empulse like a standard arena game and ignore the verticality, you are doing it wrong. The maps are built to reward players who chain movement together, and the people getting the most out of the demo are the ones who stopped fighting that and leaned into it.
Insider Gaming's preview was more cautious, describing the game as "interesting" while acknowledging the "bad juju surrounding 1047 Games." The honest read is that the mechanics are there, but the studio's reputation requires the game to prove itself in a way that a developer with a cleaner history would not face.
The No-Microtransactions Bet
This is the part of the Empulse pitch that has cut through the most in the first 24 hours of Next Fest, and it is worth understanding exactly what 1047 Games has committed to.
At Early Access launch: no store, no battle pass, no paid cosmetics. Every cosmetic in the game is earned through in-game progression, Gigs, and events. The only exceptions are Twitch Drops and wishlist incentives. The price is $19.99, full stop.
The studio has been direct about why. Splitgate 2's monetization was the thing that sank it fastest with the community. The response to that game's store model was negative enough that 1047 Games has treated the no-microtransactions commitment in Empulse as a structural condition of development, not just a PR position. The argument is that a roadmap not tied to quarterly store revenue can actually respond to what players ask for, rather than what the store calendar requires.
Whether that holds past Early Access is something only time will answer. Studios have made similar commitments before and walked them back once the game needed additional funding. But the commitment exists, it is public, and it is probably the single biggest reason the conversation around Empulse has stayed more positive than the studio's recent history might warrant.
Why the Conversation Is Split and Why That Is Not a Bad Sign
The ResetEra thread on Empulse is a good read if you want to understand the full range of reactions. Some people are genuinely excited. Some are describing the aesthetic as generic. Some have written off 1047 Games entirely based on the Splitgate 2 situation and the CEO's public conduct during that period. All of these positions are in the same thread, at length.
The thing about a split reaction is that it is still a reaction. The games that generate zero discussion during Next Fest are the ones that disappear after the festival ends. Empulse is generating enough conversation that people who were not paying attention to it before Next Fest started are now looking it up. That is what a good demo is supposed to do.
The aesthetic criticism is probably the most fair negative point. The character designs have been compared unfavorably to Titanfall's pilots, and several people have described the visual language as closer to a mobile game than a PC arena shooter. That is a real tension for a game leaning so hard on Titanfall comparisons. Titanfall 2 looked like a specific thing. Empulse, so far, looks more generic than its mechanics suggest it plays.
The movement, though, seems to be the thing that makes people keep coming back to the demo. Whoever plays it for more than twenty minutes tends to end up talking about the grapple, or a specific wall-run chain they pulled off, or the moment they got into a mech and turned a round around. Those are the stories that spread during Next Fest, and they are spreading.
What Happens After June 22
Steam Next Fest runs through June 22. The demo closes. Empulse launches into Early Access on June 24 across Steam, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S. The launch week discount takes the price from $19.99 to $15.
The window between the demo closing and Early Access launching is three days. That is intentional. 1047 Games gave players the demo a day before Next Fest started, runs it through the full festival, and then asks them to buy within 72 hours of the demo going away. It is a clean conversion funnel, and the no-microtransactions angle makes the $15 ask feel low-stakes compared to free-to-play games with $20 cosmetic bundles.
The studio has said Early Access will run on a community-driven roadmap: new modes, maps, weapons, and mechs shaped by what players actually ask for. Decisions made in the open, balance changes explained publicly, and updates scheduled around what the game needs rather than what the store calendar demands. That is the pitch. Whether Empulse can hold a player base long enough to deliver on it is the only real question left.
The demo is free on Steam right now through June 22. If you have any interest in movement shooters, it costs nothing to find out for yourself.
